


Wounds and Scars

by fractualized



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Arguing, Fluff and Angst, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Shower Sex, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractualized/pseuds/fractualized
Summary: After a bad night in Gotham, John helps Bruce heal.
Relationships: John Doe/Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 19
Kudos: 139





	Wounds and Scars

**Author's Note:**

> For another anonymous Tumblr request.

The cabinet doors squeaked open, and John found the stitch kit right where he'd left it. He plopped backward onto the wheely stool, popping his legs out as it rolled over to the med table. Bruce sat there, leaning back on his hands with his legs straight out. He wore only his tight briefs, all that was left after he stripped off the batsuit. It should have been a perfectly pretty sight.

"Bleh," John said with a distasteful roll of his tongue as he eyed the gash in the top of Bruce's thigh. "At least I don't have to pull out the shrapnel."

Bruce had done that himself at the scene of the incendiary explosion. The batsuit's sealant capabilities closed up the tear in the armor, tightening around the wound, but on closer examination back in the cave, it turned out the debris hadn't dug in that deeply. Bruce had cleaned the wound before getting on the table.

John clucked his tongue, evaluating the job before him. "Imagine what you would do if I wasn't here."

The answer was that Bruce would just do the suturing himself, though John's dexterous hands were much better at it. But Bruce continued to say nothing. He stared into space, eyes narrowed slightly, jaw set.

John frowned and laid the supplies out on a rolling tray. He got up to wash his hands in the sink and pulled on a pair of gloves.

He leaned in Bruce's direction and grinned, snapping the latex against his wrist. "Need me to check on anything else while we're at it?"

Still no response.

John's huff fluffed up his forelock. He went to the drug cabinet and loaded a syringe with lidocaine, then walked back around the table.

"You wanna maybe talk about anything?" he asked as he sat.

Silence.

John jabbed the needle in just south of the wound.

"Hey!" Bruce burst with a jolt.

"Oh, good, you're _not_ catatonic," John said while injecting the anesthesia.

Bruce's incredulous look went right back to brooding. "I'm just reviewing what happened."

"Obsessing over it," John corrected. "Not that I mind that much. You know I love your intensity– though preferably when it's on me." He withdrew the syringe and set it aside to pick up the suture packet.

"I made mistakes tonight. They can't happen again."

Bruce had been pursuing an arsonist for a few weeks now. The guy went by Firefly, probably because "Garfield" was one of the least intimidating names in the funny pages. He was pretty clever, considering how long it had taken Batman to pin down his hideout in a condemned apartment building.

"You won't repeat them. You're a quick learner." John tore open the packet, revealing the curved needle. He grasped it with the jaws of a needle holder in his right hand.

"It's not a matter of learning; it's a matter of not being reckless. Stupid."

Bruce's grim tone was darker than usual, and John wasn't quite sure what to do with it or what to say. He stayed quiet as he grabbed the forceps with his left hand and used them to hold the tissue in place on one side of the gash, near the center. With a twist of his wrist, he used the holder to twirl the needle into the skin just outside the wound, through the gap, and then up through the flesh on the other side.

He pulled the attached filament all the way through and started tying the first knot. "You're not stupid," was all he could finally think to say.

"What if Firefly had chosen an occupied building?" Bruce spat. "I could have gotten people killed."

"If bystanders were around, you would have definitely been more careful," John answered easily. The knot was done, and he clipped the thread. "It's Garfield who would've killed people. He set up the trap."

"And my missteps set it off. I need to be careful at all times."

"You already are," John replied as he started the next suture. This wound was gonna need at least six more.

Bruce didn't say anything, and he didn't get any less tense. 

John suspiciously poked Bruce's leg with the forceps. "You're numb, right?"

"It's fine."

John snorted. "If you want me to help punish you, you can at least tell me so we can save the drugs."

"It's kicking in."

"A little kinkiness in the bedroom doesn't mean I want to really see you hurt," John muttered.

"It's not a big deal."

Second stitch done. "Yup, no big deal. 'Deterrence from self-harm' is only one of the reasons I go to therapy."

"It's not– Just drop it."

John didn't drop it. He turned it over in his mind, like the needle twisting through Bruce's leg. They were supposed to be on the same page. Bruce didn't like when John got upset and hurt himself, and he'd supported John in working toward better methods of coping. Yet now he wanted John to let him flagellate himself for not being superhuman. That wasn't how they were supposed to work together.

That too-familiar scar in Bruce's left side pulsed in John's periphery.

He got through two more stitches before he said, "You can't talk to a therapist about your nightly excursions, but you should talk to me at least."

Bruce glared. "Let it go."

"No."

"What do you want me to say?"

"There's nothing I want you to say. I want to help."

"Doesn't seem like it."

John pushed aside the impulse to stick the fifth stitch deeper than necessary. "Sorry for bothering you," he said with a chilled smile.

"I'm telling you," Bruce said in the same tone, "I can handle it myself."

"We're supposed to handle things together."

"I… You wouldn't understand."

John went still before tightening another knot. "Ha! Nice." He snipped the thread. "Throw that in my face."

"That's not what–"

"Sorry the 'unhelpful stimuli' of vigilantism means I'm too much of a nutbar to really _get_ you."

"That is _not_ what I am saying, and you know it. And I'm not talking about… about being out there."

"Oh, so there's something else I can never understand about you. That helps." John jerked the last suture in, wishing Bruce could feel it.

Bruce was back to staring at the cave wall. He looked less brooding now, more burdened. "I just… I know I can do better. Every time I push myself, I get faster, stronger. I learn more. I connect the dots more easily."

Okay? John couldn't help an unkind laugh. "You already are better at all of that than anyone, after the ridiculous lengths you go to."

"It's not ridiculous," Bruce snapped.

"It's still a lot."

"It's necessary. I do all of this because no one should have to go through what I did."

"I know–"

"I obsess? So what? Mental energy is worth stopping another senseless tragedy before it's too late."

It struck John that Bruce wasn't really talking to him so much anymore, and the icy feeling in his limbs cracked. "Still, you–"

"That's what every _second_ of training and research and investigation is for."

"Okay–"

"If I'd been this prepared when my–" Bruce cut himself off. His face went stony.

John hesitated. "When you were in the–"

"Are you done?" Bruce asked coldly, looking at his leg. He saw that the final knot was done, grabbed the scissors from the tray, and cut off the excess thread himself. He swung off the table, away from John. "I'm going upstairs."

John sat there, still with both the needle holder and forceps in his hands. He turned his head to watch Bruce stalk to the elevator and take it up.

* * *

After John put the stitch kit away, he went up to his room. He'd shared a bed with Bruce ever since he moved in, but from the start, Bruce insisted he take over one of the manor's many rooms for himself. Bruce had said it was so John felt free to spend time alone if he wanted, but after their first fight, John realized it was also for occasions like this.

He paced back and forth in front of his daybed holding a stuffed t-rex as big as his torso, alternatively hugging it to his stomach and wringing its neck. He did his breathing exercises all the while, trying to let the soft lavender of the walls color his thoughts. He pondered putting music on, but no, his brain was already too noisy.

Eventually it did get quieter and he could sort through the thoughts, and by then he was sitting on the bed, only hugging the dinosaur.

He wanted to hug Bruce. He left the toy behind and took a walk to the opposite wing of the manor. The master bedroom door was left partway open, and John could hear the shower going. He went into the dim room, lit by the soft glow of the nightstand lamp on Bruce's side of the bed and by the bright slant escaping from the cracked bathroom door. John slipped inside, into the cloud of steam.

Bruce was in the too-big shower, cased off in the corner. Another wall had been built for the open side to accommodate more pipes, so jets of water could hit the occupant from the front and sides. Bruce only had the main head on, and he stood under the spray with his hands planted against the marble wall in front of him.

"You been trying to move that wall this whole time?" John asked.

Bruce jerked his head up, startled. "I'm… taking in the steam. I'll be right out."

He spoke with forced lightness, trying to wave off their little tiff like it hadn't happened. John exhaled quietly and stripped. When he opened the shower door, Bruce glanced back.

"I'm not really in the–"

John made shushing noises as he approached, then hugged Bruce from behind, pressing his cheek against scarred muscle. "You haven't even shampooed or anything, have you?"

Bruce didn't say anything. His hands stayed stuck to the wall. John would have felt insulted if he didn't know it was because Bruce felt like he didn't deserve to touch. John stepped around him to turn the shower dial down a couple notches.

"You can't scald guilt away, Brucie," he said. "Definitely not when you generate an infinite supply." Before Bruce could reply, John reached to the corner shelves for the green apple shampoo. "How come you've never used this?"

"I don't know."

"It smells so good!"

John squirted some into his hand and nudged Bruce with his knee. Bruce finally pulled off the wall, out of the spray. John got behind him again and started massaging the shampoo into his scalp. Bruce tilted his head back.

"A nine-year-old tyke," John said, "can't stop an assassination. Or a mugging, if it had been that."

Bruce's shoulders rose and fell as he breathed in the sweet scent mingling with the steam. "I know."

"Bet that hasn't stopped you from considering it. The exact moves even a kid could pull off to put someone out of commission, or the clumsy moves that would've given your parents a shot at stopping him."

After a long moment, Bruce said, "It's possible."

John chuckled. "Called it. I bet you came across a few wunderkinds in your overseas tour, and they sent that busy brain of yours abuzz with what-ifs."

Bruce was quiet.

"Anything is possible in the chaos of the universe," John said. He giggled a bit. "But that's the trouble! There's what you want to happen, and then there's allllllll the other things that could happen instead."

John nudged Bruce back under the spray and helped rinse out the shampoo with long strokes of his fingers.

"No one's ever gonna one-up the universe, buddy."

"I know," Bruce murmured.

Again he spoke in a tone that made John uneasy, this one tired and defeated. Two loofahs hung from hooks on the wall, and John grabbed the blue one and squirted on some body wash. He moved the puff in circles on Bruce's shoulder, moving down his arm.

"But!" John said. "In spite of all those forces, you do so many cool things! The crimefighting is a personal fave, obviously. Not just stopping rampaging mayors and shadowy extra-governmental organizations, but watching the streets to save all those little people from muggers and drug rings and other menacing malefactors." He started on the other arm. "Then there's the charities, scholarships, comfortably paid interns… Ooh, and that jobs program for released Blackgate inmates! Nobody else was helping those nonprofit do-gooders get that off the ground."

John moved on to Bruce's back. "And I mean, heh, I don't know who else could have gotten through to me– well, eventually. You took all that time, though, after everything…" He lingered on the scar in Bruce's side with soft swirls. "I don't know how you ever see yourself as falling short."

Bruce turned and pulled John under the water to embrace him. "Thanks for stitching me up," he murmured.

Bruce still sounded far too sad, and he looked it too, when John pulled back. John tried kissing the frown off his face, once, twice, and then Bruce was kissing back with rattling breath. John dropped the loofah and walked him back against the wall to steady him. Bruce pulled John close.

"I got you," John murmured, reaching between them.

Bruce's quiet gasps at the unhurried strokes were enough to stir John's own arousal, but it certainly helped to feel calloused hands settling on his hip and sliding into his hair. Bruce held John's head steady as they looked at each other.

"Hand me the conditioner?" John asked, leaning in to kiss the line of Bruce's jaw.

He grinned a little as Bruce reached over to fumble on the shelf. The smile stayed thereafter, as Bruce handed the bottle over and went back to squeezing John's hip, when they groaned as John took hold of them both, and through their rising excitement. Bruce's grip tightened in John's hair, and John dug his fingers deeper into Bruce's shoulder.

Bruce's eyes stayed locked on John's face, and John couldn't look away, not from that wonderful intensity trained right on him, not until their final dragging moans. John's faded into silence as he dropped his head onto Bruce's shoulder, and Bruce rested his cheek against John's slick hair.

Listening to the white noise of the shower, John matched his breathing to the swells of the broad chest pressed to his narrow one. Bruce adjusted his arms to wind them fully around John's hips and shoulders.

Bruce spoke softly. "Earlier you said…"

John lifted his head and waited. Bruce looked uneasy, but he still didn't break eye contact.

"Sometimes I don't know… what I'd do if you weren't here."

Well, John couldn't help but be pleased by that. "I didn't think you heard me."

Bruce kissed his forehead. "I always hear you, no matter how deep I've dug into my own head."

John glanced away and giggled. "Aw, well… you got along just fine before we met."

"I thought I was, at the time, but… I know better now."

Was it possible for a person to melt away and spiral down the drain? John looped his arms around Bruce's neck just in case. "You'll always have me, so no more worries," he said, booping their noses together for good measure.

Bruce snorted lightly, but he was smiling. John had a vision of snipping the thread off another knot.  
  
  



End file.
